Gathering Places
by LondonBelow
Summary: The Xavier Institute welcomes its first class of teenage mutants. It's a dream realized for Charles, an intimidating social situation for Scott, one more in a series of not-quite-homes for Ororo. Along with friends, siblings, and classmates, they explore what mutation means alone, with peers, and in a world of humans. [Stars From Home]
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I don't own or claim to own any recognizable characters, places, etc. and am not making any profit here.

With thanks, as always, to Hoodoo for beta-reading.

This story is the third in a series. I've tried to write it so that it can be read on its own; for related events, see 'Broken, Discarded Things' and 'In a Place Like This'.

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**Prologue - 1958**

Khan el-Khalili burned bright under the midday sun. Cairo's outdoor market burst with color, woven rugs and burlap bags of spices so vibrant the sight of them tasted wonderful. Metal glistened, spires of brightness perched atop green and blue glass bases on dozens of waterpipes. The smooth curves of Arabic graced signs. Many were in English, many not, and some were in something like English but not coherent English.

Voices mingled, the confident Arabic of shopkeepers beside the hesitant, heavily accented Arabish of tourists. Children raced along alleys and called to one another in the universal tones of youth. Standing close to a pay telephone, one man spoke softly in English.

He needn't have opened his mouth to mark himself a foreigner. Sunlight bounced off his white linen trousers and sweat dampened his shirt visibly at the neck and back and under his arms. Although he held his head proudly, his face was bright red. He had no tolerance for the heat.

"Raven," he murmured, "how are you? Is everything all right?"

Charles Xavier heard his sister rolling her eyes all the way back in London. "Because you've been gone more than five minutes you assume something must have gone wrong?"

That was the trouble with women. Nearly fifteen years he had known this one and still she spoke a language about as familiar to him as the calls to prayer he heard every morning. After a few days he had perfected the smooth motion that allowed him to roll over, pull a pillow over his head, and close his eyes again.

"No, I don't assume anything," he placated into the telephone.

"Then why would you ask like that?"

"Because you're my dear little sister and I care how you are."

"Little?" Raven demanded.

He chuckled. "Well, whatever you are, I care about you so indulge me this one last time."

"Last?"

"Raven."

"I'm fine," she admitted, her tone softening as the anger drained.

He smiled, though he stood so close to the pay phone no one noticed but the ages-old brick wall before him. "See, was that so hard? I'm doing well, too."

"How's Cairo?"

"Quite hot! It's at least 35 degrees."

She rolled her eyes again. "Yeah, Charles, I was asking about the weather."

"Well, I'm sorry, it's made an impression," he said, laughing. Back in the hotel, he would all but peel the shirt from his skin. Raven didn't need that detail. "There's history here, but of a different kind. It's very old and the customs are very different from ours, it's fascinating. Jim's having the time of his life."

"And how many women have you brought back to your hotel room?"

"Now, Raven, what would you say if I asked you that?"

"We can't know unless you ask me."

"All right, I call your bluff. How many men have you brought home?"

The answer from London was a long drone: Raven had hung up.

In Cairo, Charles laughed once more, hung up the pay phone and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The holiday had been a friend's idea, a friend who—unlike Charles—studied history and who—very like Charles—came from money and could easily afford to float off to Egypt for a couple of weeks on a whim.

Charles found Jim examining an archway.

"Special, is it?" he wondered.

"Not that I know of," Jim admitted. He was physically an unremarkable man, average height, a little plump around the middle but never enough to keep him out of a scrum, with a boyish face that lit with glee at his studies. "Isn't it wonderful? Can't you imagine the thousands, perhaps millions of feet that have walked beneath this arch, stood where we stand now?"

Charles couldn't. He concerned himself more with the future. A fellowship awaited him in a few weeks, a genetics laboratory and then he would begin courses at Oxford. He saw answers and understanding unfold before him, a broad truth of all people, not individuals with their tiny lives.

Jim was not a scientist and Charles humored him, "And our genetic imprint would be all but indistinguishable from theirs. Or theirs!" he added as a gaggle of children rushed past. The girls wore scarves over their hair but had no trouble keeping up with the lads. They laughed and called to one another in Arabic.

Their minds were difficult to grasp. He could have chosen one, delved into it, adapted his thoughts to their language, but basic concepts flitted through. Most were happy. One girl thought of a pretty scarf with golden embroidery and a boy wondered about lunch, one child thought of his sister and another—

Charles's eyes widened in surprise and his hand caught a bony wrist. He generally did not restrain strange children on the street, but made an exception for the little thief who slipped her fingers into his pocket.

It was a strange situation and, in truth, not one from which he knew how to proceed. The child was small, a little more than half his height, and he realized that her face held no hint of the question in his mind. Alerting the authorities seemed harsh. They still cut off thieves' hands in this part of the country, didn't they? He couldn't subject a child to that, especially one whose dirty clothes and hollow cheeks suggested this might be a matter of survival.

He was unwilling to let her steal from him, either.

For a moment, their eyes locked. He realized hers were blue. Vaguely he noticed that her scarf had slid back to reveal a shock of white hair and he thought that this girl, like himself, was a mutant. It was not a beneficial mutation, however, something alluring about her unusual appearance unlikely to help her at all in a land of hidden women.

He thought of his sister back home. Even in England her true appearance would never be accepted by others—

A burst of pain interrupted the thought. Charles doubled over and the girl fled: she had jabbed him in the kidney! And made off with his money, he realized. A few coins scattered and were quickly snapped up by other children.

The whole exchange took only a few seconds. Then the pickpocket girl was gone and Jimwas at Charles's side, steadying him. "Are you all right?"

Charles waved off his concern. "Yes, yes, I'm fine." He forced his hands away from his side, knowing they only made him seem injured when nothing had been so bruised as his pride. "Did you see her? The one who picked my pocket."

"I didn't get a good look," Jim admitted. "Mind you, they all look the same under those scarves. Did you want to find the authorities?"

"No, no," he easily rejected the idea, "it wasn't much."

They carried on with their trip, but even after he had returned to London and resumed his studies, Charles thought of the girl with her unusual appearance. He thought of her as an example of mutation everywhere and how his mutation brought him to notice hers—he never would have noticed the girl but for her thoughts.

It was a damned shame, he thought from time to time, that he would never see the girl again.


	2. Cairo, 1961: Rats and Fleas and Us

Thanks to booster2051, SweeterJ, Skewbald, and lychee loving for reviewing!

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**Cairo, 1961**

Our home had many entrances, limited only by one's creativity. I liked coming in from the next roof over, leaping the gap between the two buildings that always stretched farther than the actual half-meter. There was the inside pathway with six broken steps, the fire escape, the climb to the second-story window if you were daring.

I leapt from next door, then dropped through a hole in the roof.

Once, this building was a factory. Now it was empty but for the vermin, the rats and the fleas and us. A fire crackled in a wastepaper basket, the others around it and the setting sun making us all just visible to one another.

"Squatter's home!"

It's a name I adjusted to hearing, mostly because I never gave them another.

In the States, this term meant exactly what we were: people who lived in a place, though they laid no true claim to it besides being there. Here it meant only me. I headed toward the fire, pausing long enough to empty my pockets into Achmed's hands. "Well done, Squatter."

Achmed sat apart from the others, away from the fire. He was easily the oldest in our little den and our leader because of it, at least thirty years old. He had been Sunni once, possibly respectable from the way he spoke. Now he was a sharp-eyed man with _haram_ ink on his arms and back.

Around the fire, the boys boasted. I didn't need to hear the words to know who would take every ounce of shwarma from the _shuq_, who would steal a thousand pounds from under the nose of the chief of police, who would nick King Tut's mask from the museum. Someone must have had a new one, because they all laughed out loud.

I shivered with aloneness.

"Those are dollars."

"So I see, my girl," Achmed murmured. There was hesitant approval in his voice. He leafed through the mix of American dollars and Egyptian pounds before nodding his head. "Join in with the others."

There were countless ways into our home, but Achmed knew the lot of us one by one and every road converged at his crossing-place.

I slipped off my hijab as I approached the fire. Egypt is warm, but temperatures drop in the evening.

"'Ey, Achmed! She eat?" one of the boys called.

"Of course I can," I retorted.

"Well, how'm I to know that?"

"Tell me, Hassan, are you here because your mama heard you speak and mistook you for something a dog left in the street?" I asked.

The rule was simple: earn your keep. Anyone who came home too empty-handed too many times went hungry. We were all hungry, but some more than others. As I shoveled spiced lentils into my mouth and sucked the taste from my fingers, I realized Pinky watched me a little too hungrily. So he had been unsuccessful again.

I ate faster. Just because I had no mind to share did not mean he ought to watch me any longer than was necessary.

Three voices approached from the stairs, then the sound of rapid footsteps telling me the boys were racing. Two voices I recognized. All our eyes were on them as they tumbled through the door. Ali and Ragab came first. Ragab was no more merciful than the rest of us save where his little brother was concerned, and as for Ali, he was only five.

The third boy stood back. I narrowed my eyes at him. It might be too dark to see details now, but he didn't have me fooled. He could stand all solemn and serious like a shadow but I had heard his footsteps in the hall, running to keep up with the others. He was bigger than Ragab, who had at least a dozen centimeters on me, but no more grown up than the rest of us.

Ragab wasted no time with an explanation for Achmed.

"This is T'Challa," he offered, giving up his information as well as his spoils from the day. They clinked into Achmed's hands, mostly coins since Ragab and Ali were beggars. It's easy enough, two orphaned brothers, sad little boy with a crutch.

Ali tossed his crutch into the corner and bolted across the room. He wriggled between us around the fire, babbling excitedly about his day. Ultimately Achmed must have approved of T'Challa, because he and Ragab came to join us around the fire, also. I made space for them by going to my blanket and lying down to sleep.

I wasn't tired, but I refused to rejoin the others. Instead I lay still under the window as the stars came out and listened as one by one everyone went to bed as well: Pinky first; Ali next, and Ragab with him; Salma and Rana, the other girls, who curled together for comfort even when they had no need of extra warmth; Mo, when he realized the others were waiting for him to leave; and finally Hassan, leaving only Achmed and the newcomer awake.

"What is it you do?" Achmed asked.

We all had our crafts. Myself, I stole. Pickpocketing mostly but I have broken into homes when I had to. The brothers begged. Hassan, Salma, and Rana brought in stolen objects which Achmed fenced. As for Pinky, no one knew exactly what he did, but he usually met the mark.

"This and that."

Somewhere in the room, someone whimpered. From the voice murmuring soothing sounds in response, I knew it had been Ali.

"Ragab explained the situation? You carry your weight here."

"He explained."

Were my eyes not fixed on the stars, I would have rolled them. The boy was pompous, acting tough.

Wouldn't last two weeks.


	3. Largely Inapplicable

With thanks to SweeterJ, Voodoo, lychee loving, and BBFree for reviewing!

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The rubber soles of Ororo's shoes tapped as she made her way down the hallway. All the walls here were strong, perhaps some of the strongest she had ever slept beside, and as she walked she heard only the most distant of sounds. How strange, then, to have such strong walls and use them to keep apart from one another!

She pushed open a door. The bedroom was empty. More than empty, it was nearly untouched. Had she chosen the wrong room? She stepped across the threshold. That bed was so well made the nuns themselves would find nothing to complain about, and where the hell was the laundry? Honestly, boys were not meant to live this tidily.

The only personal touches were on the nightstand.

By now she had stepped past 'oh, the Maasai do this', the tribe she lived with for a time. She had passed the fact that in Cairo she learned that good sense meant keeping one's important possession on one at all times. Nah, now she was being curious and rude.

She flipped through the books he kept there. They looked simple enough, not simple-simple but something she might be able to read some day soon. She particularly liked the cover where the fish leapt out of a pastel sea.

She glanced briefly at the photo by the bed and might have looked at it, but she heard a noise close by and ducked back into the hallway.

Well, that had been worthless.

With a while to go before class and nothing really to do, she headed outside. It was September, warm days and cool nights, although the heat here paled in comparison to the Sahara. As she settled on the front steps, she reflected that many things were different here, yet in some ways it was like being back in Cairo.

Back in Cairo, for example, she lived with a group of others much like her. Here she did likewise, only they were all mutants rather than all being homeless children. Ororo tugged at her shoelaces and wriggled her shoes off, thinking that she missed the barefootedness of her home. Shoes were only as necessary as a person allowed them to be, after all.

Inside, someone shouted: "Sean! Are you coming or what, move your ass!"

A moment later the door burst open, spilling Alexander Summers and Sean Cassidy out of the house. Ororo scooted out of their way: they were clearly late. They called a greeting over their shoulders and she called luck after them.

She closed her eyes. As the sound of the engine faded, she let the day's heat wash over her. Today would be mild. She felt the breeze building already, knocking the edge off. She stayed there for a while, enjoying the heat and the calmness of the day. There was less to be done in this country, she had learned.

"Ororo."

She opened her eyes and turned. "Good morning, Charles."

"Good morning. Put your shirt on, please."

She did, grumbling, "Don't know why I always have to."

"It's simply what's done. Social norms and mores," Charles Xavier assured her, very 'this is educational, not a lecture', "are not personal, but if you intend to live in this country, it's important to adjust for your own sake."

Ororo nodded. "I don't understand," she said, her tone making clear that this was not a complaint but a request for clarification, "why this is for me and not Alex."

She had seen Alex take his top off several times, Sean a few times as well, and no one said anything to them except Alex teasing Sean for being so pale. Ororo was inclined to agree: Sean was pale even for a white boy.

"The way it is, I'm afraid."

She accepted that, hearing that he didn't know what more to tell her. Instead, she asked, "Where does Scott go every day? You know he goes out."

"Yes, I know. He runs."

"Where?"

"I don't know."

"Don't any of the rules apply to anyone else," Ororo lamented. She wasn't allowed to leave and go wherever she liked, she had to tell someone first. Didn't Scott? He was only a few years older.

"The same rules apply to both of you. I don't know where Scott goes because he stays on the property."

That only raised further questions. "Why would someone run and not go anywhere?"

"Many people find running to be soothing."

"But he never goes anywhere."

"I wouldn't say never, but that's not the purpose, no."

"Does everyone in this country have a car?"

"Most people do, I believe. Certainly a majority. This isn't the case in Egypt?"

Ororo shrugged. "Maybe some people." Certainly someone who, at five, found herself on the streets did not think of cars as a daily convenience. "When I left Cairo, I… what do you call it? Like this." She needed to leave and 'on foot' was far from fast enough, but no one had taught her how to say in English what she did. Instead she showed him the gesture she used, her thumb out.

"You hitchhiked," Charles supplied.

"Hitchhiked," Ororo repeated. "They never teach you the good words in the penguin house."

Charles was different from so many other people. He seemed to really listen when she talked about Africa, not go on about how unfortunate she had been to live there or make some stupid comment about life in other countries. Maybe she had never learned to use polynomials, but at least she knew the difference between a country and a continent!

They talked for a while. The sun climbed and the temperature with it, until Charles realized, "I'm sorry, Ororo, I hadn't kept track of the time. You are late to school—and I am very late."

"About school." He seemed to be in a good mood; this was the time to ask. "Must I wear shoes?"

"I suppose there's no need to insist."

His uncertain concession was all she needed. Ororo grinned. "Good, I'll take them back to my room, then."

Still aware that she was late, she bolted to her room, deposited the shoes unceremoniously on the floor, and darted to what passed for a classroom. They were still waiting for the other students to arrive at the school. Since the two already present had enough to catch up on, they carried on with studies, anyway.

Ororo arrived in time to hear Charles saying, softly, "…asked you not to do that, of course it matters. Tomorrow, yes? All right then."

"What's tomorrow?" Ororo asked, dropping into an armchair. It was meant as a sitting room really, or something like that. She wasn't clear on how a sitting room, living room, den, and lounge were all that different. This one had comfortable chairs and plenty of windows, that was all she needed to know.

Scott shook his head.

"Scott had a Philosophy assignment due this morning, it's been postponed."

"You have Philosophy?" Ororo asked. She liked the concept of philosophy. It was the very essence of luxury, to think in purely abstract terms and of largely inapplicable things. Did right and wrong matter to bringing in the cattle or slipping bills from a tourist's pocket. "I want in!"

Charles looked uncertain and his response made that uncertainty clear: "I see how much effort you put into reading and writing, but you're simply not ready for what Scott's reading. If you're still interested in a few months, we can revisit the matter then."

Well, there was a kick in the sternum. Ororo knew Charles was right. Reading and writing were difficult enough in Arabic. In English words bled into one another, everything too spaced apart, and the language itself seemed not to recognize logic or patterns. Nevertheless, hearing those words made stubbornness fuse her spine. Ororo sat up with all the pride of her thirteen years.

"You could let me try."

"Ororo, be reasonable." Charles spoke evenly, but this was an instruction more than a request.

She opened her mouth to protest.

In the low half-voice that seemed to be all he could muster around Charles, Scott offered, "I could read to you."

For a moment no one answered. That was not precisely what Ororo wanted, but she found herself struggling to think of a decent objection. If she waited until her reading skills reached the same level as Scott's, she might never join their little philosophy club. Scott was passive and sycophantic, a word Ororo spun over and over in her mind—for all that, she did not dislike him.

"I mean, if that's what you want."

She looked between the two of them and understood that Scott meant the offer, but barely expected it to be acknowledged let alone accepted. Charles approved, but held something else in his expression, something for Scott and not her.

Because the answer fell to Ororo, she nodded. "Yes, that sounds good."

Charles squinted the way he always did when sending a telepathic message and Ororo scowled. Whatever it was, it made Scott sit up a little straighter.


	4. Snips and Snails

With thanks to Ellie, SweeterJ, Lychee Loving, Voodoo, Booster, and Guest for reviewing! The schooling situation was asked about; the kids have classes at the mansion. Because it's a new school for a specific type of student, it's in some ways homeschoolish.

The book quoted in this chapter is Dante's _Inferno_.

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Scott shuffled and tapped the deck on the table, carefully arranging it into a neat pile. Ororo, watching this, resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Some American traits and behaviors baffled her. She still struggled with bed-making and clothing, well! But the eye roll she understood and had swiftly adopted.

As Scott dealt two piles of cards, Ororo asked, "Why do you care so much what he thinks of you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Everything you do, the way you act—you just want to please someone. Always. Mostly Charles."

He once more neatened the piles before handing one to Ororo. "You get the rules?"

"No," she admitted. Cards were far from distinctly American, but just like chess, Ororo had mostly seen others play. Someone tried to teach her poker once, but she promptly deemed it boring—because it was.

"Take five cards—no, from your pile. You can have five cards in your hand at a time."

"I could hold more," she assured him, going for another.

"You can only have five."

"That's stupid, I can hold at least twice that!" Actually she could no such thing, but she supposed she could manage seven.

"But you can only have five."

"Says who?"

"It's the rules."

The cards lay between them in several tidy piles on a surprisingly sturdy coffee table. It was surprisingly sturdy in that both teenagers sat cross-legged on top of it and the table supported them. The wide window provided them a decent view of the front of the house, so that they would see the new students arriving.

Scott looked around at the sheet-draped shapes around them. Not for the first time, he wondered, "Are you sure we're allowed in here?"

She gave a reluctant look as two of the cards in her hand returned to the deck. "This is what I mean about you," she pointed out.

"So when I say 'go', each of us turns over one card in the middle. Then try to get rid of the cards in your hand by picking one above or below the card in the middle. If this is a four," he said, tapping one of the cards, "you could play a three or a five. Does that make sense?"

She nodded. Three four five, simple enough.

"Ready?"

Another nod.

"Okay, go."

He flipped one of the cards in the center. A moment later, Ororo caught on and flipped the other one—the four of diamonds. "Hey, how did you know?"

"Lucky guess," Scott replied. He was already laying cards from his hand onto the piles in the center.

"Hey!" she objected, and hurried to catch up. One higher or lower. That was a seven, so she dropped an eight on top of it; the other card was a two and Ororo had a three. Only, now she had no matches left. She waited as Scott played out his hand before remembering the draw pile.

He won the first round.

"Again."

By the third round, Ororo had herself established solidly as the better player.

"I thought you liked this game."

"I do like it."

"Then why do I keep brushing the floor with you?"

"Mopping," Scott corrected. "You keep _mopping_ the floor with me. Hey, look."

Outside, a car pulled up the driveway, bringing a new student to the school. Ororo scrambled nearer to watch. The new kid looked like a girl, blond hair and a pink sweater. From this angle she looked small, though that was uncertain.

Ororo watched Ruth speak with an adult—parent?—before realizing she was alone. "Scott, c'mon!"

He finished sliding the cards into their box and joined her at the window. "Did you see him?"

"Who says it's a him?"

Scott shrugged.

She started for the door.

"Hang on. We should let him settle in."

Ororo rolled her eyes. "Don't you have a book to read?" she asked. "And it's a girl."

No, she would not be waiting for the new student to settle in. She only wanted to meet them, anyway. She headed downstairs. Footsteps told her Scott followed, so she sped up. He did, too. By the time they reached the entryway they were outright running.

Ororo stopped short when she saw the little knot of people: the new girl and her mom, Ruth and Charles. Scott's sneakers squealed against the floor as he put the brakes on. Not fast enough: he crashed into Ororo. They collapsed into a heap of knees and elbows.

By the time the two managed to pick themselves up, all eyes were on them. Scott turned nearly as red as his glasses, but Ororo kept her chin up and stared right back.

"And these are two of our students," Charles said, amused, "Ororo Munroe and Scott Summers."

Scott extended his hand. The mother shook it, but the girl didn't acknowledge him. She was petite, after all. Her hair curled around her face and that was about all Ororo could see, except a glare of eyes like she would expect to see on an angry cat.

"It's nice to meet you, ma'am."

"Likewise, I'm sure," the woman said, though her tone was tight, uncomfortable. "Laurie," she prompted.

The new student folded her arms over her chest. "I'm Laurie."

The announcement invited no further discussion.

* * *

"Wow! This place is gargantuan! I mean the sheer magnitude!"

Doug Ramsey closed his mouth long enough to finish stepping out of the car. He was big for his age, with a youthful face and wide brown eyes. He had called earlier to say that he would be late arriving at the school because his mom's car broke down. Ruth offered to pick him up and the grateful enthusiasm he expressed surprised her.

By now she understood that enthusiasm was the boy's default. If Scott was their beaten pup, Doug would be the two-year-old Rottweiler who barked and wagged his tail in unfettered glee at every butterfly and mailman to pass by.

He lit up when he saw Charles, too, and maintained that easily impressed attitude throughout a tour of the school. "How do you plan to help me with my ability?" Doug wondered. Much as he liked the school, his ability interested him more.

"I think that can wait until tomorrow," Charles assured him.

The responding nod told him this was not the answer Doug hoped to hear.

"Unless you'd rather begin now."

Because he did, and because he understood that Charles was just as happy with it, they began with two books, a pen, and a pad of paper. Charles opened the first book. "I'd like you to copy what you read here," he said.

Doug scratched the text onto the notepad. He did not understand the point of this exercise. His ability allowed him to understand any language he encountered. This was simple for him. Nevertheless, trusting the man, he went along with it.

He had copied out three sentences before Charles stopped him, requested the first sheet of paper, and opened the second book. "Now, the same thing again, using this text."

Once more, Doug copied words from the page.

Charles laid both pages side by side. "Read this aloud, if you would."

"Okay, uh, 'I am the way into the city of woe, I am the way into eternal pain, I am the way to go among the lost. Justice cause my high architect to move, divine omnipotence created me, the highest wisdom, and the primal love.'"

"Was it written in English originally?"

The question threw Doug. For the first time since arriving, he found himself at a loss for words. He recovered himself enough to admit, "I'm not sure."

"Is this written in English?"

"I… huh," Doug said. Had he written in English? He tried to remember.

"Look at the book again," Charles suggested. "Try to really look at what's in front of you."

Doug did. The book looked basically as he remembered it, lines of poetry down the center of the page. He scanned the words and understood them.

"_Look_, Douglas. Try to think of it as a picture rather than words."

He focused on a single word. Much as he tried to think of it as a picture, it was still a picture of a word and that word was 'wings'. His forehead wrinkled in concentration as Doug found, much to his frustration, that the word would not untangle itself. It was not a picture, anyway. It was a means of understanding.

Finally, he shook his head.

"Well, that's all right. It's in Italian," Charles told him, "which is something I hope to teach you how to recognize, so that you not only read the page in front of you, but understand it, also."

"Oh," Doug replied. "Fascinating!"

"And perhaps enough for one afternoon?"

He nodded. "Yes, safe to say."

"In which case, I believe some of your classmates are eager to make your acquaintance."


	5. Cairo, 1961: Older than Sand in Egypt

Thank you SweeterJ and Voodoo for reviewing!

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**Cairo, 1961**

"So, Ali tells me you pick pockets from the tourists."

"Mostly in spring, summer."

The more common holiday seasons brought more people on holiday, more fresh marks who seemed not to know about the spring's habit of pissing sand into a strong wind. T'Challa joined us in summer and outlasted my expectations, strolling casually beside me in sunny November.

I kept my head down to hide my scowl. I never expected him to last this long amongst us and still sometimes wondered that I had not dreamed up this strange boy who held his head with too much pride. In private, among the others, I had pride, but T'Challa stared defiance. He made himself noticeable.

Idiot.

"What now?" he wondered. Knowing I pickpocketed in spring and summer, he had questions about what I did in the other seasons, and truthfully I had no desire to answer.

Instead, I asked, "Where were you before you joined us?"

"Does that matter? You're avoiding the question."

"So are you."

T'Challa laughed. "Says the girl who never even gives a name! Why do they call you Squatter, anyway?"

I kicked a pebble down the road. It bounced along, hit the wall of a building, and came to rest once more. This time it was too close to the house for another kick; my feet were street-toughened at the soles but still vulnerable on the tops and sides.

"I break into homes around here."

"They call you Squatter because you break into homes?"

"When there are fewer tourists." I chose my neighborhood carefully: comfortable people, because I had no desire to beggar anyone, but hard working. They were neither so poor they had nothing to steal nor so rich they expected it to happen.

When T'Challa asked how I entered those homes, I told him by picking the lock. He did not believe me, so I told him to meet me at the corner, he knew the one, stay out of sight of that falafel house where the owner has no tolerance for breathing. I don't know how long he waited or what he expected, but I went about my business without his dogging my steps.

It turned out not to be the best idea.

"So you can break into some schoolteacher's flat," T'Challa said, not for the first time, "so what? Pick a lock where they expect it. Best a decent system for once."

He followed me once more, having spotted me as I walked past Ali and Ragab. I said nothing to them, did not even acknowledge them. Somehow urchins with friends seem less sympathetic, perhaps because it reveals the truth that we are not so alone and pathetic as people like to believe. They took one side of the street and T'Challa, a few feet down, the other.

He peeled himself off the wall to shadow me, and I ignored him.

"I bet you can't," he continued. "Is that it? It's okay if you can't—"

"You shut up, T'Challa! I could so too, but it's a bad idea. Everyone knows this area is controlled." Protection money was older than sand in Egypt.

"No one will know," he wheedled. "We can slip in through the back—we'll go now, when it's quiet—"

I resisted the urge to spit at his feet. "Oh, shut up! You know nothing about it. We'll go in the evening, when they get off work. The shops will be busy then, that's the best time."

He should have been annoyed to be told off by someone at least two years his junior, but instead he had a huge grin on his face. I groaned when I figured out why. Without meaning to, I had agreed to go along with his stupid idea of breaking into a store. I was even beginning to plan it.

Well, anyway, it would show him who could pick locks!

I only once broke into a shop to prove myself. Sacks of spices lined the floor. Thin paths allowed me to weave through, giving me access to whichever one I wanted to take. Any would have been a great success, albeit bulky enough to practically guarantee we were caught. Then again, they bore no mark. Once we lost the sack, nobody would prove where they came from.

What you have to understand about spices, many are worth their weight in gold. They tinge the air with scents so strong they leave hints of color and tastes at the back of the mouth. They have a certain magic in them.

Footsteps approached from the shop. I grabbed the first thing I could easily carry. Any good thief knows better than to run—it's noisy and reckless. Instead I padded swiftly out the door, where T'Challa waited.

"Well?"

"Sh!"

We walked away from the shop, strolled a few blocks like we had any business being there before I took out the packet I had stolen. T'Challa's eyes lit up. I saw on his face what he thought. Though I was as poor as he, somehow what I saw in him twisted my gut.

His face fell when I opened the bag and popped a candied almond in my mouth.

T'Challa stopped dogging me after that and I gave him looks sometimes which I hope he appropriately read as taunting. I knew he pressed the others into doing such things, and perhaps it showed improvement for us. We did eat better, with cheese and meat making appearances among the staples of lentils, chickpeas, and pita.

It never sat well with me, though. Achmed kept us safe. As long as T'Challa flouted his rules, I slept with one eye open.


	6. PE

Thanks to BBFree, Voodoo, and SweeterJ for reviewing!

* * *

On Monday, Doug and Laurie were surprised to learn that their history teacher was also their gym teacher, and even more surprised to learn that gym class here included martial arts. On Tuesday, Alex and Sean joined them, and the boys and Ororo sat on the grass, waiting for Ruth.

Laurie joined them in a miniskirt. Both Sean and Doug gave lingering, appreciative looks at her bare legs.

As the younger students engaged in a conversation about schoolwork, Alex punched Sean on the shoulder. "Sicko."

"What?"

"She's _sixteen_," Alex said, keeping his voice low. He found that his friend's behavior bothered him, but he didn't want to call Sean out in front of everyone.

"Girls don't dress that way not to be noticed," Sean argued.

"C'mon, man, she's in class with my little brother!"

"Don't you mean your big brother?"

"What does that mean?"

Apparently Sean and Alex's conversation had not been so private as they had hoped. Now that Doug asked his question, the others looked to Sean and Alex. "What does what mean?" Ororo asked.

Doug began, "Sean implied just now that—"

"It means mind your business," Alex interrupted. Then he muttered at Sean, "Nutsack."

Luckily, before Sean could respond, their teacher arrived. "What is everyone sitting around for?" Ruth asked. She knew, of course: it was not an inquiry but a call to arms. Or rather, to feet. "_Kum_! Time to work!" Only Doug heard the command as 'stand', but they all understood and climbed to their feet. "Laurie, do you plan on joining us today?"

Laurie shrugged. "I was thinking I could, like, watch," she murmured.

"Are you sure? Plenty of time to change clothes and come back. Otherwise I have to fail you for the day."

"Like grades matter in this place."

Ruth shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Ororo couldn't understand Laurie's choice. She couldn't understand a lot about Laurie, but found her refusal to participate in gym class particularly baffling, especially on wardrobe grounds. If she could spend every minute of the day in her gym sweats she would. Who cared if they were boring and drab? They were comfortable.

Laurie and Doug were new to this, but Ororo had been at it for several weeks. She went through Ruth's warm-up exercises without thinking about it, mostly keeping her eyes on Laurie. The older girl had no alternative in mind. She sat nearby, picking her cuticles, not even achieving anything. By the time the group bolted to the gravel path to run laps, Ororo had worked herself into a state of frustration.

That worked in her favor.

They reached the path as a group. Alex finished the first lap in the lead, with Scott not far behind him. The two had known they were brothers for only a few weeks now and were still adapting to the knowledge, but when it came to racing, both seemed to understand competition. Doug was always last, though good-natured about it, clearly out of shape and well padded.

Ororo's main competition was Sean.

Her legs burned and her breath was short by the time she finished the first lap. A glance at Laurie reminded her that _someone_ around here had to make girls look useful, giving her a burst of energy. Sean noticed and his footsteps quickened behind her, but she was determined, pushing herself off the ground so fiercely she heard the pebbles scatter behind her.

By the time she finished, her body seemed to move in slow motion, and she came to a heaving stop with one hand pressed to her side.

"Nice," Sean told her.

Ororo nodded, resisting the urge to glare at him for showing off that he could still speak while she was aching for air.

Scott brought her a bottle of water.

"'m not useless," she said. In the several seconds she needed to recover her breath, Scott wandered off to sit in the shade.

Meanwhile, Doug arrived, just as breathless and sweaty as Ororo, with his face bright red. She heard Sean ask Alex who won; she didn't know what 'earning his spurs' meant, but American English was very colorful for losers.

"Everybody survive?" Ruth asked. Once, Ororo asked her why they had to run and Ruth didn't. The teacher responded by running twice around the building in less time than Alex needed to run halfway around. "Good. _Y'alla_." She motioned them over. With groans and grumbles of objection, everyone except Laurie left the shade to join Ruth on the grass. "Who remembers the first rule of krav maga? Ororo."

"Attack as soon as possible."

"Very good. Second rule? Doug?"

"Er… get out as quickly as you can?"

"That is the third rule. Second rule is do as much damage as possible. This is why you must only use this when it is justified, when you are in danger. This is about staying alive."

Doug's hand went up and Ruth invited him to speak. "Why do we learn it?" he wondered. "Not that I object, specifically, only inquire as to the—"

"Okay, okay," Ruth interrupted, having already realized that once Doug began one of his circumloquitous explanations he might not finish for an hour. "To protect yourselves. You learn it because not everyone is kind to mutants. Also, not everyone is kind to children. Or to adults. There may never be a time in your life during which you are glad to know how to defend yourself, but a time you did not and wished you did would be far worse."

Doug accepted that answer. They all did, the solemnity in Ruth's tone knocking the smile off even Sean's face.

"Can you give us an idea of when it's okay to use," Alex suggested. He seemed to already know the answer but could think of at least two people who didn't.

"Charles does that," Ruth replied, "he teaches you right and wrong. I teach you how to kick ass. Only not so much because, why not? Who knows—Scott."

Scott, who had been picking at his sleeve, looked up in surprise.

"Why would you not kick ass in krav maga?"

"Um, second rule?" he suggested. "Eyes, groin, neck, um, fingers… not so much butt."

"See? Someone pays attention. We choose our targets in krav maga for the damage they can do. But today we will not be attacking, today we practice blocking. Groups of two."

Sean and Alex worked together, since neither them felt right about hitting kids (except Scott, who as a sibling was fair game as far as Alex was concerned), and Doug and Scott since neither of them felt right about hitting girls. The latter had Ororo scowling. Without Ruth watching, she might have shown them how hard girls can hit back!

Instead she went to work with Ruth. It didn't matter, she told herself. She would learn better than they would, because she had the best partner. As Ruth gave her mock attacks to practice blocking, Ororo could not help thinking this was largely Laurie's fault. She could handle everyone around her being white—even Hank, who was white despite being blue—and speaking English perfectly, but at least the teachers let her feel like she was one of the students.

Usually.

If Laurie were not such a prissy brat, Ororo would have a partner her own age, like everyone else. She stole glances at the other girl, who continued to sit against the building with her stupid scowling face and stupid tiny skirt. Honestly! If she wanted to strut around without anything on her lower half, she ought to do it, not just pretend she would.

A tap at the top of her head demanded Ororo's attention. She turned back to Ruth.

"Don't get distracted."

Ororo frowned. "I didn't get distracted," she objected, "someo—thing distracted me!"

Ruth shrugged. "So don't let it distract you." She pointed up at the sky and added, "Don't get angry."

The sky was hidden behind grey clouds.


	7. Tappy-Clawed Monsters

Thank you lychee loving, Voodoo, MF 22, and SweeterJ for reviewing!

Laurie is indeed meant to be Wallflower, as she was early on before befriending Wind Dancer and coming out of her shell some-she did seem a touch snarky at that point, though she didn't get overly much chance to show it.

* * *

"Where's the lab?" Laurie asked and Scott told her too explicitly for her to claim she was lost.

Now Laurie stood in Hank's lab, hands shoved her into her pockets, watching the blue guy. She had no idea what learning to use her powers would mean, only that she was to meet with Mr. McCoy today. Good. More than math or history, especially more than krav maga, she needed to learn control.

Leaving home wasn't her idea. Okay, she admitted things had been bad at school, but so what? Nobody liked school. And was it her fault? She had done everything she could. She didn't ask Trenton to approach her. Or Victoria. Besides—some people deserved it.

"Have a seat."

"I'm fine here."

"Okay. You're not afraid of mice, are you?"

The question startled Laurie. For the first time since arriving here, she raised her eyes and dropped the scowl. "What?"

"Mice," Hank repeated. He lifted a wire cage and set it on the table. Inside, a little white mouse stood in the corner, its whiskers twitching. Its front paws were splayed out, trying to balance even so close to the floor. The little thing was visibly trembling.

Laurie stiffened. Mice. She hated mice! Creepy little tappy-clawed monsters! Trying not to look scared, she clenched her jaw and stepped forward, putting her face close to the cage.

"Hey there, mousy."

_Filthy little rat._ This close, she could smell it, a mix of animal and pee and wood shavings. Its beady eyes had evil in them.

The mouse squeaked and tunneled into its wood shavings.

"We can find another way to make this work."

"It's fine."

"If you're afraid of mice—"

"Who said I'm afraid of mice?" Laurie demanded.

Hank shrugged. "Okay." He seemed not to believe her, but did not make the offer again. "He's afraid. Your challenge for today is to calm him down."

She raised her eyebrows at that. "Calm him down?" she repeated. Was he _insane_? "It's a mouse! It's not like it's gonna listen to reason!"

"What is your gift?"

"You want me to use my gift."

"I want you to answer the question," Hank replied evenly. He did not sound annoyed with her, and Laurie found that bothered her a bit. She was being stubborn and refusing to give on this. As an adult, Hank was supposed to be annoyed.

She heaved an aggrieved sigh. "I emit, like, pheromones. I can make people feel what I feel."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to have a seat?"

"I said I'm fine!"

It wasn't that Laurie regretted losing her temper. It _wasn't her fault_! She didn't even want to be here, she didn't want to talk about things or look at some dumb mouse. She didn't want to be in trouble, either, and that she regretted.

There would be consequences. There always were.

* * *

"A graph is basically a visual representation of data. See, this is what you know," Doug explained, indicating two sets of numbers inside parentheses, "and this," the outline of a graph, "is what those points are telling you. Except," he realized, "this is wrong, you should have a positive slope. That means the line goes up."

Scott traced the line, not quite touching the paper, right to left. They sat at a table in the library, Scott's algebra book and mangled homework in front of them. Doug was easily twice the other boy's size, but hardly the typical skull-brained bruiser.

On the contrary, he actually understood algebra.

"Fair enough," Doug replied, "but it has to go up from left to right. See, this is actually 4 on the y axis—which is vertical. Your axes are mislabeled."

"_Your_ axes are mislabeled." The retort came from Ororo, who dropped herself into a chair opposite them. She clearly had no idea what 'axes' meant, but had picked up basic insult patterns. "I need to trade weeks with one of you."

Doug looked at Scott, then back to Ororo. "I understand, but the metaphorical usage of weeks eludes me." He never meant to do it, but words stuck so easily in his mind. After a pause, he translated into Humanspeak, "I don't know what you want."

She explained, "I don't want to clean the kitchen tonight. Or this week, at all. Trade with me. I'll take your next turn."

"Why?" Doug asked, the question stretching to two syllables in skepticism. He was a nice guy, not a stupid one.

"'Cause."

"You're being evasive."

"You're being an asshole."

"You want something from us," Scott reminded her gently, glancing up from his algebra homework. That had the majority of his attention: the graph needed to be re-re-done, because somehow he had messed it up again. His line didn't have a positive slope.

"I'm paired up with Laurie," she explained. "I can't be around Laurie."

Doug went quiet. Ororo practically steamed at the mention of Laurie, having needed all of two days to determine that disliking wouldn't suffice. She needed to actively despise Laurie. So he clamped his jaw, sure anything he said would only make matters worse.

"She's not so bad," Scott murmured, his eyes on the paper again. He was, Doug thought, strangely uncomfortable for a mundane situation.

"Have you actually spoken to her?" Ororo challenged.

"Sometimes…" Scott trailed off. His tongue flicked over his lips like dryness was the problem. "People need time."

"Sycophant."

"I'll clean the kitchen as long as you stay there. You don't have to talk, just be there." There was something strange in him as he said it, something Doug couldn't quite put his finger on, but Scott was a difficult person not to trust.

Ororo sighed. "Fine. Good enough. Deal." She thrust her hand out so suddenly Scott jumped back in his seat. When he realized she only meant to shake on it, Scott edged forward and took her hand.

"Deal."


	8. Detente

Thank you SweeterJ for reviewing!

* * *

"…and the best part is they hated it, absolutely _hated_ it, but they wouldn't make me get another cut or it would be even shorter!" Ororo finished, to which everyone laughed. She may have been the youngest, but she knew how to hold the attention in a room.

With most attention on her, Scott chucked a pea at Alex.

"But why did you cut it in the first place?" Hank asked.

"To sell to the mganga. The… what would you say…"

Dinner was the only time all nine of them were in the same room at the same time. Usually it was a crowded, noisy event. Much as Ororo enjoyed training with Ruth and, well, some of her other classes, this was her favorite time of day. She liked the relaxed atmosphere and the inevitable noise of several people speaking at once.

For all the differences between this culture and the one she knew, when a group of people just _were_, they could have been anywhere.

As for the language barrier, Doug asked, "Sell or witch-doctor?" He understood everything, every word Ororo and Ruth used in a different language, but still could not tell which was English, Arabic, Swahili, or Hebrew.

"You call it a witch-doctor?" Ororo asked.

"It's a rather derisive term," Charles said, "a throwback to Colonial days."

So quickly it was difficult to say whether or not Charles had actually finished speaking, Hank retorted, "Tell that to the Jomo Kenyatta."

Clearly this meant something only to Hank and Charles.

While everyone else looked confused, Hank looked pleased with himself and Charles looked a mix between offended and surprised. Ultimately he seemed to conclude that the best course of action was glowering at Hank.

Alex took advantage of this distraction and retaliated against Scott. It was an absolutely perfect shot, or a very lucky fluke, and Sean and Alex bit back laughter as Scott knocked the pea from his hair.

"Uh, hey, why—why did you sell your hair?" he asked, now vegetable-free.

"Bad luck," Ororo explained why the money had been needed. "We lost cattle in the drought and there had been two lions hunting them. Maasai don't mostly deal with money. I wasn't Maasai, not really."

"But," he still did not understand, "why your hair?"

"We said it came from a _zeruzeru_, they're good luck. Fishers put the hair in their nets."

Doug looked confused. "Zero-zero?" he literally translated.

"A… someone who is all white. Not like you," Ororo told Doug, who was blond and fair-skinned, "more than that."

"Albino," Ruth suggested.

Scott hurled another pea at Alex. It whacked him right between the eyes. Sean cracked up and crowed, "Bullseye, pea-brain!" which was enough to get the kids laughing. Even Laurie, with her head bowed and attention on her food, could not hide a smile.

The conversation meandered around itself from there. Somehow Doug, Ororo, and Scott wandered onto the subject of that afternoon's krav maga and how at least two of them wished they could try sparring; Charles, Ruth, and Hank reached the subject of Colonialism with three very different perspectives; Alex tried to nudge Sean as subtly as possible while still doing a small amount of damage.

Sean rubbed his shoulder. "Hey!" he objected, keeping it soft. Because his ability tied into his voice, he had a lot of experience _not_ shouting when he might like to. "What was that for?"

"Sixteen!" Alex, likewise, kept this low. He didn't want to draw attention to it, but how could he not notice Sean staring at Laurie's chest? Seriously, she was his brother's schoolmate. Watching his best friend ogle her not-quite-breasts was unnerving.

Sean excused himself from the table.

The others likewise wandered off, until only Laurie, Ororo, and Scott were left. Ororo and Scott cleared away the last of the dishes. He was headed into the kitchen when Laurie stopped him, standing directly in his path.

"Hi, Laurie."

Somehow, although they had known one another for only a few days, Scott felt he knew her well enough to deem this odd: she never talked to him. Laurie did not go out of her way to talk to anyone.

"Look, thanks for taking over for me with the dishes this week," she said with an edge of resentment he didn't quite understand.

Her thanks seemed genuine, though, so Scott nodded. "It's no problem."

He caught the implication, too. That had never been his intention! Guessing what had happened behind the scenes, he pretended to Laurie, "Do you play fo—soccer? Alex and Sean and Ororo and I do. It'd be great if you wanted to join us later."

She shook off the offer with something that sounded vaguely like a 'no thanks' and headed from the room.

Scott carried the last of the dishes into the kitchen. Ororo stood by the sink, watching him; she knew he knew. For a moment they regarded one another, at a détente. Words clamored around her mouth, struggling to escape, but Ororo managed to keep quiet as Scott regarded her with a look of something akin to disappointment.

He stepped forward and grabbed a dishtowel, which he tossed to her. "I'll wash, you dry."

When she asked him to take her turn washing dishes to avoid being around Laurie, Scott meant for Ororo to stay in the kitchen with him and Laurie. She didn't have to say a word, just be around the other girl. Without technically breaking their deal, Ororo managed to wriggle out of that. He could not help feeling a little betrayed.

With so many people in the house, they had a small mountain of dishes to wash. Scott scrubbed and passed dishes off, never shoving, very calm. On the inside, he steamed. The only reason he even asked that Ororo stay in the room was Charles telling him that running away from one's problems never made them disappear. Charles would have made Ororo and Laurie talk to each other. Scott just wanted them to recognize one another as human.

Halfway up Dish Mountain, Ororo said, "You're mad at me."

"I'm not," Scott denied, passing her a clean plate.

"Look, I did what you said. You wanted me to be here, I'm here, get it? But I told you, straight away, I said I couldn't be around Laurie—"

"I still don't get why you sold your hair," Scott interrupted. He didn't appreciate her explanation. She hadn't either done as he wanted, and she knew that. She had used him. The anger grew until he changed the subject.

"I needed the money somehow."

"But couldn't they tell blond hair from white?"

Ororo paused. "Scott… do you think I have blond hair?"

"I… uh… don't you?"

With his glasses, he had trouble telling the difference between certain hair colors. Ororo's was close to his brother's. It was close to Doug's, too, but Scott liked using that term. His brother.

Judging from how hard Ororo was laughing, he had not been quite on the mark!

"How many Africans have you met who have blond hair?"

"How many Africans do you think I've met, ever?" Scott retorted.

They paused, the slosh of water falling quiet as Scott and Ororo glanced at one another, then they both burst out laughing at his mistake.

When they returned to washing the rest of the dishes, she said, "I'm glad you're not mad anymore."

"No," Scott agreed, "I'm not mad. I'm just a little disappointed in you."

* * *

_Note – About albinos' hair being used in fishing nets, this is true, however it's not limited to hair but nearly every part of the body. This is still the case today, particularly in Tanzania. _

_Regarding Hank's remark, in the 1960s, the British Empire in Africa was declining. Jomo Kenyatta became the first president of Kenya in 1964 and had previously fought for Kenya's independence from the Empire. The British responded less than kindly. So when Charles says 'throwback to Colonial days', Hank is suggesting that 'throwback' is an attempt to distance himself/his country from something not very distant. He's mostly joking, but Charles is not amused._


	9. Cairo, 1962: No More 'Us' To Be One Of

**Cairo, 1962**

Before, I thought in terms of 'we' and 'us' and 'our'. We had our home; we provided for ourselves. We had Achmed who looked out for us. Of course we were alone, but we were together in that. We shared food and, when there was less to eat, we shared hunger, too. On cold nights we curled in a pile against the wind.

I watched my 'our' smoke and blacken. It gave a crack like thunder, then louder and sharper as the building began to collapse, each piece landing on my chest, crushing my lungs. I watched the fire from an alleyway, safe from the heat and safe from the smoke, but the stones found me.

I sagged against the wall, unsteady, but its brick wrapped around me. As I staggered down the alley and into the bright street beyond, I heard myself scream, not my voice but something high-pitched coming from inside me.

Behind me the our continued to blaze and crack.

What do you say about the day your home went up in flames?

Most important, I knew. The second I smelled smoke I started to run. A scrap of metal in the road cut my foot and it hurt but I didn't stop, and even as I ran, I knew there was no point. I couldn't put the fire out.

And I never looked back. I knew what happened when you saw a thing broken. With my body curled on the side of the road, my mind thought about my parents. They used to be names, faces, voices, arms and legs and heads and torsos—they used to exist, you see. When I was six years old I looked back and my parents became the pile of rubble that trapped me until it broke me.

No, that's wrong. The rubble didn't break me. It pinned me and pressed me but only brought me to the brink. The sight of it shattered me. It ripped out my heart and left an empty place. I refused to be shattered again, so I refused to look at the remains of the old factory we called home.

They call Cairo the mother of the world. Sometimes the setting sun catches the Nile and golden fire coats the surface. Lives like mine leave little time for nonsense-mongering. Romance is for people with time, money, and watery brains—but the Nile glittered so brightly it erased, it found the emptiness inside me and puffed it so full of nothing it felt like something again.

The morning after I realized I needed to grow up and look after myself first, someone shook me awake.

The familiar face made me smile. In spite of everything, knowing someone, recognizing someone—then I jerked back and tried to sit up and punch him at the same time. That was unsuccessful, but I did successfully tell him his mother had been a whore. A cheap one.

"Hold still, would you?"

Clawing his eyes out sounded more attractive, but he gripped my ankle and poured cold water over my bare foot. I was too surprised to react. When he began scraping off the scab I understood and, in spite of how much I hated him, I appreciated it. He let the cut on my foot bleed itself clean, then wrapped a bandage around it.

Smacking him now felt wrong, although I warned him, "This can't make up for what you did."

"I didn't start that fire," T'Challa replied.

"No, you kept your hands clean." It was two insults rolled into one. At least people who do their own dirty work aren't chickenshits, and T'Challa, although we lived together for months, was never one of us. Never mind that there was no more 'us' to be one of, he wasn't. We got our hands dirty. I had so much dirt under my nails they were darker than my skin.

Maybe I had bested him. I sure believed I had. Or maybe he was clever enough to see that even the best, most logical argument would be wasted on me until I forgave him.

"Why did they call you Squatter?" he asked.

"Hassan had never seen a girl naked before. He asked how I peed."

T'Challa's eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

"You wear the hijab," he reminded me, "but Hassan—_Hassan_—saw you naked?"

"I was six," I told him. Hassan must have been ten, at the time, and a complete idiot. The latter related in no way to his age. Hassan had always been an idiot and would be if he lived for a hundred and one years. "Besides, I only wear the hijab because of my hair."

He shrugged. "Fair enough."

Any time I wanted to be called by another name, I could have told them. Maybe it wouldn't have stuck at first like Squatter did, which is what you get being the first girl to show up. If I told them my real name, they probably would have used it. Here's the problem: she was crushed under a pile of stones.

Or maybe I preferred not to hear the name my parents gave me used for a grubby thief.

"We can rebuild," T'Challa said. "We'll find the others, find another place to make ours."

He didn't know yet that there was no more 'ours'.

"Have you learnt nothing?" I asked. "It's your fault, T'Challa! You pushed us. We were quiet and small and nobody minded. Do you think that fire was an accident? We didn't play someone else's game until you. You wanted bigger. You wanted more. Well, congratulations, I guess this makes you a man with a man's choices and a man's responsibilities, and a man's _enemies_, idiot!"

I was, perhaps, a touch angry. If he had been quiet earlier because he knew I wouldn't listen until I forgave him, now he heard how long a time he had to wait for that forgiveness. He ruined everything! True as it was, I refused to rail like a child. My anger stayed righteous.

T'Challa lowered his eyes. "Will you leave the city?" he asked.

Leave Cairo? The thought never occurred. Where would I live if not here? Where would I nick my lunch if not Khan el-Khalili, and what was a skyline like without a thousand minarets? Yet, the only thing I truly loved about Cairo was the Nile.

And Cairo does not own the Nile.

"Yes," I said, "I will."


	10. The Hebrew Word for Dog

Thanks to lychee loving for reviewing!

Regarding Doug's translation in this chapter: Hebrew is not a Romance language, is read right to left, and does not have a literal equivalent of "to have".

* * *

Although his first lesson in using his ability had been with the Professor, Doug found himself assigned to work with Ruth after that. He cheerfully accepted this assignment; he liked Ruth. She was straightforward and used some very colorful expressions. Generally he guessed when she was not speaking English by whether or not the others snickered. Not that he meant to name names, but some of his peers were easier to read than… well, for Doug, anything.

So he followed Scott's directions and found himself arriving only slightly out of breath and not that much late in the larger scheme of things, when one really thought about it.

All of the adults had something that made them significantly different, though most were within fifteen years of the kids' ages. Hank was blue, with an intellect that needed to step carefully lest it accidentally stomp the others' like ants. Professor Xavier was practically another species. As for Ruth, her foreignness helped. So did her utter confidence.

"Sit, please."

Doug did.

"Are there goals with your ability?"

"None in particular," he admitted. Unlike the others, his gift never caused him any inconvenience. While he was pleased to be here and pleased to train, it was all advantages, never digging himself back to ground level.

"Okay. Let's go." Ruth took a piece of paper and a pen, instructed Doug to look away, and wrote something on the paper. "Look. Read this."

Doug did. Thus far this lesson seemed to be shaping up to be similar to the first one. "I have a dog," he read.

"Now, second line. Follow along with your finger."

He set his fingertip under the first word. "Dog," he read. The next word was, "to me," and finally, "there is."

"These are the same," Ruth told him.

Now that he saw both at the same time, Doug appreciated that. Not only had his ability translated what she wrote into an alphabet and language he knew, it had rearranged the words to form logical English sentences. He saw the words as they were written if he focused.

Ruth asked, "What language am I speaking? Since you came in, what language did I speak?"

The question threw Doug. He had assumed she was speaking English because he heard and understood her in English. Only now that she asked did he think to wonder if it truly was. He paused, thinking it through, trying to recall—but he found no hints. Finally he guessed, "Hebrew?"

"True," she said, "but you guess."

She must have been careful with her words. Hebrew sentences are not constructed as English sentences are, not precisely, and often when Ruth spoke Hebrew or Ororo grumbled to herself in Arabic, Doug understood the words but not the meaning.

Doug nodded. "I lacked certainty," he admitted. "Like, utterly."

"And if I told you that the Hebrew word for dog is 'dog'," was what Doug heard next, "what would you say is the Hebrew word for 'dog'?"

"Er. Dog?"

"Okay. Say 'kel'."

Doug mimicked the nonsense sound, "'Kel'."

"Say 'ev'."

"'Ev'," he echoed.

"Kel-ev."

"Kel-ev."

"This is 'dog'," Ruth explained.

Doug had no idea whether she had just said 'dog' or 'kelev'.

The rest of the hour was more of the same. Ruth and Doug experimented to see at which point his ability began to affect his perception. She taught him more Hebrew words, gauging whether he could learn to hear other languages, and showed him Hebrew and Arabic letters which meant nothing until strung into words.

When their time was up, she asked, "Still no goals, Doug?"

"None yet, but I like all of this."

"Let me know if you think of anything. Good work."

"Thanks, Ms. Bat-Seraph."

Ruth hesitated. "Say my name one more time."

Not sure why, Doug repeated, "Ms. Bat-Seraph."

"Thank you."

What had that been about?

He puzzled over it as he made his way down the hall. A voice registered, though in tones rather than words. The nearer he came, though, the clearer the voice. He compromised. Stopping to listen would have been wrong. Instead, Doug slowed his steps.

He wasn't _eavesdropping_, merely walking past the office door as what he now recognized as Alex's voice said, "…not his fault and you have to do something about her!"

"Alex," Professor Xavier replied, an edge to his familiar calm, "you were dangerous once, too."

"At least I had the decency to be ashamed of it," Alex shot back. The answer to that must have been a look, because Alex admitted, "Not ashamed. But I didn't use my gift on just anyone. _You_ pushed me when it was safe. I didn't just—I wouldn't. Not like that."

Doug was too far past now to hear the response.

He heard Alex's raised voice, though: "It wasn't him, it's that b—"

The word cut off suddenly and Doug sped up. He shouldn't have paused to listen, but what he _had_ heard made him speed up. There was no question in his mind that the girl who had Alex so upset was Laurie. There were three women around the school. Obviously it wasn't Ruth and Ororo could be a pesky kid, but she didn't inspire that sort of anger.

Doug knocked on the bedroom door. "Laurie?" Of course he knew which one was hers. Laurie wasn't friendly, but she wasn't that secretive.

A few months ago, Doug was a normal guy. He could have heard what he heard this evening, grabbed a popsicle, shot some hoops. Whatever. Alex's issue, obviously Professor Xavier had everything under control, so it was nothing for Doug to worry about.

Only, he began to notice things. One day his dad came home from work as chipper as always, but Doug saw defeat written all over him. He smiled happy, but he moved sorrow. A girl at school who barely talked to him was suddenly really clearly into him; a boy in homeroom hated him. That was how it started, not with words, but with the way people moved.

He headed outside.

"Laurie."

She leaned against the side of the building like she should've had a cigarette in her hand. He practically saw the words swimming around her and, not for the first time, wished he could go back to the guy he used to be. He hadn't seen a basketball hoop but there was definitely a soccer ball around here somewhere.

Laurie glanced over and shook her head. "Go away."

"No."

She didn't really want him to. She was just scared.

"Screw off, Doug!"

"What happened?" he wondered. The first thing Doug heard Alex say involved and 'him' and a 'her'. Sean or Scott? "Did someone, uh, do something to you?"

Laurie gave a bitter laugh and shook her head. "They're gonna kick me out," she said, "you know that? It's been four days! God, my mom's just gonna love that."

"That seems highly improbable," Doug replied. There was a right thing to say here. Unfortunately, being able to see that Laurie was upset didn't mean Doug knew what to say to make it better. That hadn't been it.

He laced his fingers together to keep from literally scratching his head.

"What happened, Laurie?"

She rolled her eyes. "I made out with Sean, okay?"

"What?" And Alex blamed _Laurie_? Sean was at least five years older. He was responsible. "That despicable—"

"Doug, don't."

"Do you want me to beat him up for you? Or, I'll talk to him. Er, maybe to Ruth. I'll—"

"Doug, just shut the hell up!" Laurie demanded.

Doug shut the hell up.

Laurie shook her head like she couldn't believe anyone was this stupid. She sank to the ground and looked out for nothing in particular.

"What I'm about to do is just as your friend," Doug said.

He sat beside her and held her hand. She neither flinched nor pulled away, and none of that surprised him. After all, she sure had softened when he said 'friend'.


	11. Outside of its Definition

Eight o'clock dawned two hours earlier than usual on Monday morning. The alarm started to ring and, uninterrupted, rang and rang until its steady stream of notes began marching, headache-style, into Alex's ears. They formed ranks on his brain and marched in place.

When he stayed in bed anyway, the alarm clock drill sergeant douchenozzle commanded them into double time and their shiny boots smashed twice as hard onto his brain.

Between the growing headache and his mind's use of extended metaphor, he knew it was past time to wake up. He stumbled out of bed, staggered across the room, and slapped at the alarm clock, missing twice before finally silencing the monster. He kept his eyes closed as he gave his alarm clock the finger for waking him up at six o'clock, which eight o'clock becomes on a Monday.

Something had clattered to the floor. It bothered him. Alex wasn't particularly tidy, as the dirty clothes corner could attest, but some things mattered. He would figure out what had dropped, pick it up, and go back to bed. He couldn't handle going anywhere today, not this early.

Vaguely, he registered that Sean needed a ride. Like Sean would be out of bed before noon without someone kicking him in the ass!

Alex focused his bleary eyes enough to locate the dropped object.

"Aw, man…"

It was a photo, a chubby-cheeked toddler grinning like the moron that he was with an infant—nearly half his size—on his lap.

Although they were brothers, Alex and Scott had not grown up together. Their parents died in a plane crash when they were both young, leaving Alex to be adopted and Scott to grow up in an orphanage. Scott didn't talk about the orphanage, but Alex knew it was run by a man who treated kids like lab rats, leaving his now-younger brother with nightmares, scars, and significantly delayed aging.

That was how Scott, born nearly three years before Alex, had the body of a fifteen-year-old while his 'little' brother was (supposedly) grown up. Hank theorized that had Scott not been subjected to these experiments, it would have been Alex.

Ever since then, Alex felt a certain obligation to Scott. Of course the brat was such a hoity-toity, smarmy little goody-two-shoes, the only thing he wanted from Alex was that he live a good life for himself.

Scott was glad Alex was back in school.

Scott was glad Alex had a good friend like Sean.

Scott was glad Alex wanted to do something with his life.

Alex spent two minutes mumbling curses at his brother as he shuffled through the necessaries of the morning, pausing in his murmured tirade only after jabbing himself with his toothbrush. That was Scott's fault, too. Otherwise Alex would be in bed right now, not making his way back to his bedroom, not sniffing his jeans to determine whether they were too dirty to wear, not giving up on another task when he failed to locate a comb.

He found a burst of energy as he passed Sean's room, at least enough energy to bang on the door and call, "You better be up, you lazy crapsack!"

Sean must have been awake, because he retorted, "Yeah, and I'm almost finished banging your mom!"

Alex told himself that was about his adoptive mother. He didn't care, in fact walked off almost laughing at Sean's stupid remark, but Alex's other mom was also Scott's mom. Since his brother suffered from critical humor failure, remarks about his mother were a touch taboo.

Ororo and the humorless boy in question sat at the table when Alex wandered into the kitchen. They had time to sit and eat thanks to a lack of commute.

Doug had also been with them, but he gave Alex a look of fury and walked out of the room.

Unable to resist, Alex reached out and tousled Scott's hair. "Morning, Scotty."

He was like a knock-kneed, zit-faced adult sometimes. Today was no exception, as evidenced by the newspaper in front of him.

Scott ducked away. He hated when Alex did that. Long enough to deposit his spoon back in the bowl of cereal and he tried to object, "Don't call me—" but it was too late, judging from the shit-eating grin on Ororo's face. "Goddammit."

"Okay," Alex agreed, "I won't call you 'Goddammit'. That better not be sweat I got all over my hand."

"Who asked you to stick your hand in my hair?" Scott retorted. "And no. It's water. There's this thing called a shower."

There was coffee in the deceptively simple-looking mug-like pot-thing Hank had spent the past year perfecting. Credit where due, it made amazing coffee, but the one time Alex tried using it Hank went purple. Today it had coffee already. Alex touched his knuckles to the side of the pot.

Warm coffee! The use of a mug was a pointless formality. It would have been more direct to tip the pot over his open mouth.

Ororo swiped the paper. "Thanks, Scotty."

Scott sighed. "Why am I everyone's bitch?" he lamented, then, much to Alex's amusement, glanced around to make sure Charles wasn't there and hadn't heard him say 'bitch'. He could act grown-up all he wanted, but he was still a little boy who wanted to avoid trouble and liked the snap-crackle-pop noises his cereal made.

"Because you let it happen, dude." Alex drained his mug and left it in the sink. "Walk to the car with me."

Scott didn't answer.

"No, I mean it. C'mon, Goddammit."

Scott muttered something that would earn him an extra week washing dishes when Ororo repeated it, but he followed Alex. Alex asked questions that might have seemed casual but for the tension in his voice. How was the school? Were the new kids okay? Had anything, uh, out of the ordinary happened?

When they reached the garage—which, like the house, was vast outside of its definition—Scott grabbed Alex's arm to stop him. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Stay away from Laurie."

"She's in my class. I can't ignore her."

"Then be polite, but keep away from her. Look, trust me, okay? 'Cause I'm your big brother and I know more than you."

"You're not my—"

"This time I am." Alex hadn't meant to raise his voice.

Scott nodded. "Okay," he replied, sounding doubtful, but Alex knew Scott was as good as his word. "No, of course—I'm sorry. Um, w… will you tell me why?"

He asked it of the ground, but Alex was working on an answer, anyway. He stopped when Sean joined them. "Finally," Alex sighed, "I hope you used protection."

Remembering that the last thing he said was a crude joke about Alex's mom, Sean laughed.

Alex made a fist and tapped Scott on the shoulder. He knew Scott would've hugged him—he'd done it twice and Alex let him, but come on. Alex was a guy. So he settled for a slow-motion punch to the shoulder. "Take care, twerp."

"Good luck, jerk."

* * *

"A woman?"

"No."

"Alive?"

"No."

"Dead?"

Alex gave Sean a look that spoke volumes regarding the marvel that someone with his intellect managed to put his shorts on the right way each morning.

"Okay, dead," Sean ceded, hands up in surrender.

They sat in two uncomfortable chairs in a row of uncomfortable chairs, Sean slouched until he was half-lying. The walls were drab, but the corkboard flyers had exclamation marks and a few bright posters splashed color around. One showed a kitten clinging to a piece of rope.

Alex nudged Sean. "Check out the cat."

"I don't really 'check out' cats."

_Oh, I think we both know what you check out._ Alex kept the thought to himself. Instead he said, "Bet its claws could shred the rope."

"Huh."

"You know how sharp Artie's claws are?"

"No, I don't tease the cat." After a moment's silence, Sean began to laugh. "Your brother has a pussy."

Alex cracked up.

"Alexander Summers?"

Alex stood, swung his backpack onto his shoulder, and followed a small, balding man with wire-rimmed glasses—he paused a moment, though, to flip Sean the bird. Then he strode down the hall. Earlier in the week, he hauled Sean to the community college so they could both take assessment exams. Now, in a creaky chair that might once have been cushioned, Alex faced an academic advisor.

He had faced a high school principal enough times across a similar desk with a scratched blotter and tacky-looking surface. The urge to talk back rushed up his throat like bile.

"Okay, Alexander. I'm Colin Green, I'm an academic advisor and I have your test scores here. Before we go over these, have you thought about what you'd like to study?"

"Not really," Alex admitted. "I was never a great student, so I'm kind of hoping to get things back on track."

"What brought you back?"

Alex instinctively opened his mouth to be rude and promptly snapped it shut again. He swallowed, giving himself time to think, then, "I've had some, uh, difficulties holding down a job, but I have my GED now and education could help me redirect things, a bit."

He wasn't one for admitting to problems, so the explanation emerged awkward and stilted. Certain things had to be chopped out. _I lost three jobs in a month because I was so messed up after accidentally killing my best friend with my mutant superpower._ Yeah, that might not sound great.

"That and my kid brother." It was Hank who let slip that the community college had been Scott's idea. Alex supposed he should have known, but, "He came out here on a ten-speed." _After I nearly broke his ribs._

"That kind of support is always a powerful motivator, having your loved ones behind you."

"Whoa, let's not go nuts!" Alex replied before he could think better of it. Okay, Scott was his brother, and he liked the dork well enough, but 'loved ones'? Well, he supposed his foster-sister Haley would be happy, too; he loved her. He'd tell her once he had actually done something. "You have my test scores, right?"

"Yes. You've placed into English 101 and Math 119-A, which…" and Colin Green was off, telling Alex what his test scores indicated.

Overall, Alex had to admit that the man helped him. He discussed some of the career pathways the school offered and explained different areas of study that hadn't mattered to Alex before. When Alex still felt more confused than anything else, Colin Green helped him sign up for a variety of classes, 'to see which one grabs you'.

The whole thing had a foreignness to it. Was this normal in some circles, sitting there and talking about all these bright, broad prospects like they applied to you? Alex couldn't remember anyone treating him this way before, acting like he could achieve something if he applied himself.

After the meeting, he stopped by the corner store.

Sean found him squinting at the bright sunlight. "Hey, man."

"Hey."

Alex offered him a beer and Sean joined him, leaning against the car.

"So how did yours go?"

"Okay," Alex replied. "Yours?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. They ask you why you were enrolling?"

"Nope. They asked you that?"

Alex hefted the can in his hand, feeling that it was just less than half full. The sun still gleamed too brightly. It had burned off that strange, hopeful energy that built up in the academic advising office.

"Alex?"

He drained the rest of his drink in one long gulp, crushed the can, and chucked it into the garbage bin. "Finish up, we gotta go."

"I'm not driving," Sean observed.

"You're not drinking that in the car."

Alex was a little rebellious and a little wild, but he hadn't been lying to the advisor. He wanted this to work because he wanted a better life than the one he had. That meant no stupid risks like coming home with Charles's car smelling like beer. He needed wheels—which meant being responsible when he borrowed them.

Sean threw away a half-full can and claimed shotgun. Of course, with only two of them in the car, he had a right to it.

"Oh, and Sean?"

"Yeah?"

Alex punched his shoulder.

"Ow! What the hell!"

"Scott's not a pussy," he said, looking straight ahead.

He pulled out of the parking lot and onto a mostly-empty road. A stop sign at the corner brought them to a halt, giving a kid no more than thirteen the chance to race his skateboard across the intersection.

"He is, though."

Skateboard Boy was gone. Alex drove forward. Not for the first time, he wished there were highway between the community college and home, some place the speedometer could hit forty.

"Yeah, I know."


	12. Sahara, 1962: A Very Little Geography

Thanks to lychee loving and booster2051 for reviewing!

* * *

Leaving a place, when one has neither home nor possessions to carry, proves quite simple. The trick is simply to go.

Later, in America, I learned a different way of doing things. It may be simply the way Americans are built. Maybe they can afford to be so slow because they have enough of things; maybe people in Egypt are this way, too, when they grow up any place besides an abandoned factory with holes in the roof.

I decided the best course and took it. If I wanted to change my mind, I had plenty of opportunities as I walked the road out of Cairo, but I took none, only pausing to buy (or steal) pita and sleep. No more debris found my feet. The rag T'Challa tied as a bandage grew filthy, but the knots held for the two and a half days of plodding.

On the third day, I stuck my thumb out and took the first ride offered. It's easier to go from than to.

All my life, my hair raised questions. Even when I had parents people asked about my hair, stark white since the day I was born, or they stared in a way that made questions unnecessary. The hijab was Achmed's idea. They don't sell _zeruzeru_ parts in Cairo—Cairo is civilized—but Tanzania does and it is not common. Hunters travel.

I never understood: I was lighter than my mother, but nothing like light as my father and certainly not albino. As I traveled I became more and more grateful for the scarf. Heading away from Cairo meant going south. It seems one can always head south to find stranger customs.

"This is a strange place for a Muslim girl to be alone."

I shrugged. I wasn't Muslim, but people always assumed so from the hijab. Better than showing white hair in this part of the world.

Sometimes being a girl is helpful. Keep your head down and saying nothing is as acceptable as finding the right thing to say.

My latest ride was two men, business partners. What business, they never said and I never asked, but from the looks of them not a very nice one. The one I trusted least drove. He smiled too much, not like someone with nothing to smile about but like someone who smiled for all the wrong reasons.

Well, I never needed to like them, only to travel with them. Theirs was the only car I had seen in days.

The world sped by outside, neither so lushly green as garden nor barren sand. The growth was scrubby, determined plants and the way the car sped made my stomach jolt. There wasn't enough in it to throw up. Instead, unable to get the sickness out, it sent nausea up to my head.

"You going anywhere in particular?" the driver asked, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

"To visit my aunt," I lied.

"Where is she?"

"Tanzania."

Without formal schooling of any kind, I knew a very little geography. This country I knew of because Achmed told me in Tanzania some hair and hands and feet are considered good luck. No one from this country would ever be family to me, not because they were strangers but because they were vicious. But the men did not need that information.

They traded glances.

After a while, they exchanged a brief conversation. I recognized the sounds as Swahili, but not the words. They pulled to the side of the road and, without a word to me, both stepped from the car and walked away.

I needed them because we had come to the middle of nowhere. Suddenly I understood my mistake, because now I had no way back. Few cars came down this road and, without water, I wouldn't last long alone.

Alone.

The word reminded me of the crack and spit of fire destroying what used to make me not alone and now the car felt too close, airless. Its metal walls expanded, longer and closer like a steel band tightening around my chest until I couldn't breathe.

This never happened before. Now I blinked hard, trying to see but couldn't and reached blindly for the handle until the door opened and spilled me out of the car.

At nearly twelve years old, I was no longer a little girl. My body moved wrong; there was more of me. My arms and legs were longer and new curves made me a whole lot less streamlined. With no one around to tell me what any of this meant, I only found it inconvenient and borderline infuriating.

I never considered what others might find it.

The two men waited for me. I left the car and they grabbed me.

Everyone wants to think that they are brave. After years on the street, I knew how to twist and stomp and kick. I caught him in the shin. He slammed me against the car and my head spun. He kept his hands on me, fingers digging into my arms.

And I… I stopped fighting. I have never, since or before, been as afraid as I was then. He let go of my arms and wrapped a hand around my throat. The other hand tore my clothes. I didn't know what it meant, not in detail, but I understood enough to be so scared my breath stopped.

Time slowed then. I felt every beat of my heart and the whisper of the wind from the east, an electric promise of rain several miles away. Every particle of air touched my nerves like an extension of me, my body diffused and spread more miles than I could imagine.

The lightning struck suddenly, with a great crash and a pillar of hot light, from what had been a pure blue sky. The world went white.

My mind stopped between two moments. I stopped.

It was the man, his hand on my throat.

Then the lightning.

Then me, scorched earth, scorched car, two scorched bodies.

More than that, more than the corpses, the realization scared me. They had been fried by lightning. One had his hands on me, pressing me against the car—

Yet the lightning passed through me.

I stood, staring, and wondered how this was possible. How had they been stuck and I been spared? Was I, somehow, immune to lightning?

The whole thing was too big. It was too much.

I spun like a hare and ran.


	13. Mice and Regret

With thanks to lychee loving!

* * *

Hank turned the volume off during the commercials, though a buzz of static still leaked from the television.

"The first time I was in here, President Kennedy was giving his address about the Missile Crisis."

Scott still didn't know exactly what that was. Ruth had given him some of the facts from an outsider's perspective, but this was the first time Hank or Charles allowed its mention in months. Yet, although he should have wondered about it, Scott found himself not sure what to say. He knew better than to ask for more details.

Hank had said all he wished to on the subject.

Instead, "What do you think?"

"I think I'm in love with Ingrid Bergman."

"What do you think of the other kids?"

Stifling a yawn—could it really only be Thursday?—Scott asked, "Are you asking as my friend or as my science teacher?"

"A little of both," Hank admitted, "but anything you ask me to keep between us, I will."

Scott gnawed the cuff of his sweatshirt. He had to be careful where he gnawed, these days: the cuffs were developing holes. It used to be Sean's. When Sean told him to keep it, Scott felt less self-conscious about the gnawing—which was good, because stopping was very out of the question.

"Sometimes I wish my gift was to make myself invisible," he blurted.

"Is it that bad?"

"It's that complicated," Scott replied. "Doug and Ororo are all right and I think I'm getting on okay with Laurie. She doesn't like me, but I don't think she hates me. Ororo and Laurie don't get along at all, though, and what's going on with Doug and Laurie and my brother?"

Hank assured him, "Charles knows."

Scott wasn't one for trust. If the ground didn't hold him up, that boy wouldn't believe the planet was still there. One person he did trust, though, and that was Charles.

He trusted Hank, too, but not to resolve complicated interpersonal issues, at least those involving people besides him and Charles. That was not Hank's strong suit.

"What do you think?" Scott asked.

"Are you asking in general or in regard to a specific subject?"

After a moment's gnawing, Scott said, "You'd think Africa would have more black people in it."

"We need to have a talk about Colonialism."

"About wh—um, the movie's back," and went to turn up the sound. He had not actually been interested, but knew Hank wanted to watch a movie that was on TV. As the story played out, though, Scott found himself drawn into it.

He still didn't understand why Rick needed a letter of transit if he was an American. Couldn't he just give them to Ilsa and Victor, and go back to the States? Okay, he wouldn't be thrilled about it, but at least he would be alive.

"My dad fought in the War," he mumbled.

"What?"

"Nothing."

They watched in silence for a few more minutes. Then, at the sound of footsteps and the door swinging open, both of them turned. Charles and Ruth were there. Charles raised an eyebrow, but it wasn't necessary: Scott already knew.

"Just another half hour?" he asked. "Please?"

Charles shook his head. "You know that would be unfair to the other students."

Scott disagreed. Yes, he knew he had the same curfew as anyone else under eighteen—Alex and Sean were responsible for themselves, 'responsible' being used loosely—but wasn't he kind of the good one? He hadn't been outright rude to anyone, nearly started a fight with Alex, or lost his temper and whipped up an almost-tornado during class.

"It's almost to the end," Hank offered, "and you know if he doesn't see how it ends he'll regret it—maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of his life."

Hank and Charles found this amusing. Not enough for Charles to budge on the issue of curfew, but amusing.

"But I—"

"Now, please." That was not a real 'please'. It was a warning.

Scott sighed like a very put-upon teenager and stood.

He hadn't gone five steps when Hank stopped him. "Hold it, Radagast. Athos?"

Tinged with embarrassment, Scott fished something from the front pocket of his sweatshirt and placed it, gingerly, in Hank's hand. Charles didn't get a good look until Scott was out of the room. Then he saw a familiar little white mouse asleep on Hank's palm.

"Athos?"

Hank shrugged. He switched off the television. Unlike Scott, he had seen _Casablanca_ before and already knew the ending.

"Hank, if you have a problem with—"

"Leave it," Ruth advised, resting a hand on Charles's shoulder.

"I don't have a problem with it," Hank added. "Now, weren't we going to have a meeting?"

"Yes." Ruth took a seat. "Easiest first, I think, Ororo."

Silence answered. Ruth seemed to shift seamlessly from one situation to another. The two men were grinding their gears. Neither seemed to have followed as she leapt from their interpersonal tangle to school business.

Ruth cleared her throat. "Ororo has a temper. She is thirteen, so, not unusual, but with her ability this may be dangerous."

"I'll speak with her," Charles offered. If he could impress upon Ororo the importance of control and taking responsibility, he believed she would respond. She was young, but not foolish. Life had asked too much of her. "What about Douglas?"

"No one calls him Douglas," Ruth replied.

"I do."

She gave an over-emphasized sigh and asked, "Why are the pretty ones always so dumb?" That earned a chuckle from the others. "Douglas, Doug. I am trying to teach him to recognize different languages. He sees, hears everything as English, but if he focuses he can recognize separate words. He needs meaning. This is interesting. Aleph and alif, would mean nothing to him. Put them into words, he understands."

"Do we need to mention his general animosity towards Alex?" Hank asked.

"Ah. For that I have no answer."

"I'm in control of that," Charles assured them. "Laurie is a larger concern."

"You know what Alex is like."

When they first met, Alex liked to goad Hank. He had changed since then. Apparently Hank's opinion of him hadn't.

"He's different now. Scott means too much to him, he won't jeopardize that."

_Which means you can't control him,_ Hank thought, concerned, but Charles wasn't in a listening mood on that subject so Hank kept the thought to himself.

Instead, they discussed Laurie. She was clearly miserable, with no intention of getting close to anyone. The other students had their clashes, but they genuinely tried to be friendly with one another. All came to the school in their own way: Doug arrived eager and enthusiastic; Ororo took a quick out from an unpleasant situation; and Scott hadn't really come to the school so much as been here as it formed.

Only Laurie seemed to have been dropped here by her parents. While her mother had tried to help her settle, Laurie took it as a slight.

"Laurie has no interest in controlling her gift," Hank summarized, "at least none she's expressed to me."

"Nor to me," Charles agreed, "though her isolation remains a concern. It's going to be difficult to reach her until she accepts one of us."

"The boys try to include her," Ruth offered. "Scott and Doug will invite her to play or whatever they do, but she has no interest in this either."

"Well, then we carry on and speak with those who are cooperative. Alex may not like her, but he will play nicely. I've impressed upon him the importance of making everyone feel welcome here. Now, as for Scott—"

"We can use him," Ruth suggested. "Ororo might settle if she had a friend. Scott is closest. We can train them together—moving targets could benefit them both."

She meant this in terms of abilities. Because Scott's gift refused any attempt at being controlled, he was learning to use it for specific purposes. He could hit a target halfway across the bomb shelter. Targets in the wind would be a new challenge.

Something finally reached the point of 'too much' for little Athos. He had fallen asleep in a pocket, been fished out and transferred hands, all without waking up. The lull pushed him over the edge. Squeaking, the mouse began exploring a world beyond Hank's palm.

"I should take him back to the lab."

"I'll walk with you," Charles offered. Neither he nor Alex would appreciate knowing they had something in common, but both used this tactic for a private conversation.

"You will?" Ruth asked.

"Accompany," Charles amended.

As he and Hank made their way to the lab, he asked, "Has Laurie taken to training at all?"

Hank shook his head.

"Well, I suppose she's named the mouse. That's something."

"Scott named the mouse."

"Oh." Then, realizing, "Athos. Of course. I should have known."

"I forgot about the prostitution scene in _Casablanca_, I'm not sure he even understood it."

"What did you say?"

"I changed the subject!"

The overt discomfort in his voice made them both laugh. Hank was more socially comfortable than he had been last year, but still sometimes found himself out of his depth.

"And how are you, Hank?"

"Me? I'm fine. I have a lot to learn about teaching."

Part of Hank still suspected Charles had telepathically manipulated him into agreeing with this—because surely in his right mind he never would have said that he wanted to teach high school science. Challenging as it could be to break down subjects so the kids understood them, they were immensely gratifying students.

Well, three of them were immensely gratifying. Scott worked so hard, Doug delighted in every little thing he learned, and Ororo was a dangerously clever creature.

"Yes, as do I," Charles said. He might have more than half a year's experience with Scott, but one well-behaved, simple child was quite different from kids with Laurie's attitude, Ororo's energy, or Doug's attention span.

They reached the lab. Hank opened the cage and slipped Athos into it. "What was it Moira called us?" he asked.

Charles paused. He no longer missed her so keenly, no longer thought every day of his choice to erase himself from her mind, but the memory twinged within him. That last conversation they held, he thought of nothing but the thing he knew he had to do.

_You're your own team now…_

"X-Men."

"Right. Is that what we're doing here?"

"You're certainly free to," Charles replied. "If you, Alex, Sean, or Ruth should elect to do so, I will fully support you, but those days are rather behind me and the children are not to be involved." After a pause, he asked, "Is that what you want?"

"I'm not sure," Hank admitted, "but don't you like the sound of it?"

Charles thought about that after leaving the lab. He liked the sound of it and the idea of it. What he disliked was his role. They were capable of so much. _They_ were. Rebuilding a crimefighting force and playing only the role of supporter—and financier, he supposed—left a sour taste.

For the first time in a long time, he felt like a cripple.

The sound of a scuffle interrupted his thoughts. Thinking obscenities he would never say—not where the children might overhear, anyway—he followed the sounds. They stopped before he arrived, interrupted themselves by a loud crash.

"Well."

Ororo, Laurie, and Scott stood beside what had once been a rather ugly vase. Of all the breakable things in the house, Charles had to admit he would have had more annoyance to suppress had something not his stepfather's been broken. None of the children knew that. They only knew, and they knew it clearly, that they were in trouble.

Ororo raised her chin a fraction of an inch, sorry but defiant.

Laurie wore her usual expression, a thin veneer of strength not nearly hiding her vulnerability and hurt.

Scott had his shoulders hunched. He was pale and looked like he might cry.

Only Doug, halfway out of his bedroom door a ways down the hall, looked bewildered.

"Who was it?" Charles asked, intentionally vague.

Ororo glanced at Laurie. Laurie scowled back.

"Me."

Charles raised an eyebrow.

"I broke the, um…"

"Vase," Charles supplied.

Scott nodded.

Charles looked between the three of them. Doug clearly had nothing to do with it. Ororo and Laurie clearly did. When no one volunteered any further information, he decided, "Detention it is, then, tomorrow afternoon. All three of you. Now go to your rooms."

When exactly did he become someone who used words like that? With the others, Charles accepted some responsibility. They looked to him and he rose to the occasion, but they needed nothing like the amount of authority it took to control a group of teenagers.

"Not you, Scott."

The others headed off. Scott hesitated, so tense he nearly squeaked. Charles hated keeping him in suspense. He knew it was worse, but he did not want an audience for this conversation.

So Scott was nearly trembling by the time Charles warned him, "I don't like being lied to."

Scott said nothing.

Charles touched his hand. Before Artie, Scott barely accepted physical contact and it always made him wary, yet he clearly craved it. Now he usually accepted it. Not tonight, though: Charles touched his hand and Scott jumped.

"Remember what I told you. I'm not happy with you for lying and I must insist you have detention as well, but I still care about you and I will never hurt you. All right? Understood?"

Scott nodded.

"I know you didn't break the vase. In fact, I know the girls were fighting and you tried to separate them."

"W… m… may I ask a question?"

"Yes, of course."

"Why did you ask if you were going to read our minds?"

"I don't always have to read your mind. I know you. I suspected what happened and you confirmed it for me just now."

"Oh." Amazing, how much that single syllable held.

"Are things all right between us?"

Scott nodded.

"Good night, then."

What he mumbled in return might, possibly, have been an echo.


	14. Unhappen

With thanks to BBFree for reviewing!

* * *

A fly buzzed so close its drone roared. She watched it—the frustration bounced against her belly—she pointed.

_Zap!_

The fly fell to the grass.

It was Laurie's stupid fault! Laurie and her no control, Laurie and her meanness, Laurie not caring about anyone but herself like her power didn't leak out and contaminate everyone around her—

_Zap!_

A dandelion this time, growing unwanted in the middle of the path. Now a weed, now ash. The frustration ricocheted from one lung to the other, back and forth.

Moving targets were more satisfying, really. Ororo held out her hand, gathering a ball of lightning in it. Moving, not swaying like the grass, and she felt a sourness in her as she spotted one. She would regret this, later, but right now—

"Stop it."

She turned, a ball of lightning crackling in her hand. The reality of that moment crashed over her. Part of Ororo had been a thief and a runaway and looked after herself all the while, but another, very big part of her was new to the United States and undone by the strangeness. Even she had known what she nearly did was wrong, but that second part of her said it was okay as long as no one knew.

Now Scott knew. He had seen. Ororo felt her chin quiver and hefted her lightning.

Scott shook his head: no, he was not afraid. "Get rid of it."

"You don't give me orders, Scott Summers."

He looked no more certain than she felt. Ororo narrowed her eyes.

"Get rid of it or I'll tell Professor Xavier what you were about to do."

"You can't know what I was _going_ to do, you're not a mind reader."

She realized her mistake a moment too late to stop herself from making it.

"He is."

Ororo glanced at her lightning, then back to Scott. She knew he would tell—he was the type for telling tales—and she knew she was in the wrong. The problem wasn't what she knew, though, it was: "I don't know how."

This was actually new. She had used lightning before, but never gathered it in a ball like this and certainly never tried to give it back.

Suddenly she frightened herself. The tongues of tiny lightning licking from her hair frightened her.

How this mouse walked right up to her like he wasn't scared, Ororo couldn't imagine. She wasn't sure how his pet cat didn't hunt him.

"Okay, lightning comes from the sky," Scott said. Brave, she thought, but not the cleverest. "Can you send it back to the sky?"

"How?" Dumb idea.

"Um…"

"Well why would you even say it, then?" she demanded. She was standing here with a handful of lightning and he was blathering nonsense!

"Just focus, okay? Think, think about how lightning comes down to you—"

"It just does."

"What do you do to make it?"

Ororo shrugged. She did know the answer, but not the words. She didn't know the words in her own language, let alone the clunky language this boy spoke.

"Will it back to the sky. It comes down from the clouds, it just has to do the same thing in reverse."

He didn't understand, of course. He didn't know how it felt when the energy gathered. Lightning happened; it didn't unhappen. Ororo was caught now in the middle of what should have been a blink-and-you-miss-it process.

"Ororo, open your eyes."

She hadn't realized they were shut, just like she hadn't realized she could send lightning back to the sky. She turned over her hand like the lightning might have just moved, but it hadn't. It was gone. She grinned at Scott, who grinned back for about two seconds before looking at his shoes.

"I can't be stuck here another day," she said. "I _can't_. I'm not some… pet!"

Scott thought about that for a moment, then nodded. "I'll be right back—don't throw lightning at my cat."

"I won't."

"I swear to God—"

"I said I won't," but since she nearly had, she could only be so indignant.

Artie was a useless animal and so baffling to Ororo, but the fact that she had nearly taken a life disturbed her. Somehow hurting Artie bothered her while hurting the fly did not. Scott had gone inside now and Ororo wondered whether her feelings toward the animal suggested she, too, had appreciation for pets in her.

And she wondered if he had gone to tell, after all. He said he wouldn't, but Scott was—what was the word?

"Okay," he said, stepping outside again. "Do you want to explore?"

"What?"

"Explore," Scott repeated. "The town is that way, over there you'll hit fields, but there's a little wooded area if you cross the road. We can go wherever you want. Ruth said it's okay."

Ororo rolled her eyes because of course Scott asked permission. He was that word, the one she couldn't remember—but she liked the idea, and she had to admit he had given her exactly what she asked for.

"Let's cross the road," she said.

Scott nodded.

They headed across the road, Ororo realizing for the first time that Scott was a good deal larger than she was. It surprised her; she knew she was smaller than everyone else, as well as several years younger, but most of them seemed bigger. Doug certainly was and Laurie was bursting with unfortunate personality.

"Wait up." Scott paused to tie his shoe.

Ororo glanced around, then up at the way the leaves canopied overhead, shifting to show glimpses of a pale blue sky. This she loved. So many things about America she accepted, but for this… she missed home. She always would.

Away from the city, though, she wanted to fly not to leave the earth behind but to join the leaves.

She realized she had been daydreaming for some time. "Honestly!" Until recently, Ororo had never worn a pair of sneakers. Was he some kind of spazmo? "How long does it take you…" and she trailed off, seeing his reasoning walk across the road. "…to…" So! Mouse Boy had cunning in him after all!

Ororo kicked him. He was still crouched down like he needed to tie his shoe, so she caught him in the ribs with the side of her bare foot.

She was at least a dozen centimeters shorter, but Scott didn't retaliate so they left it at that. He just nodded a greeting as Doug and Laurie joined them.


	15. Tit for Tat

With thanks to Iankee for reviewing!

* * *

"Hey," Doug said. "Hey, Ororo."

"I wanted to say, earlier, that Scott is," she began, and said the word in Arabic.

Seeing Doug's baffled expression, Scott explained, "That wasn't English."

"Oh! Okay."

"So Scott is…?" Ororo prompted.

Doug glanced between the two of them. Scott nodded that it was okay, so Doug told him, "Smarmy."

Scott shrugged. "'K."

The two traded glances again. Scott gave a subtle jerk of his head and the boys started into the woods. Laurie followed. She had her arms crossed over her chest and radiated frustration, but she followed. Women did that, Ororo had seen. Women in sunshine and women in rain, it didn't matter, they let the men lead. Girls let the boys lead.

Ororo was annoyed, too, but not annoyed enough to run back home. She took off after the boys, occasionally kicking at a weed or stone.

"Anyone for 'animal, vegetable, mineral'?" Doug asked.

"No," Ororo and Laurie chorused, then glowered at each other.

Doug murmured something to Scott. Ororo hurried forward, trying to hear what was said in response, but by the time she was near enough they were speaking at normal volume again: "Do you like Johnny Cash?"

"Yeah," Scott said.

Doug sang, comically lowering the pitch of his voice, "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine/I keep my eyes wide open all the time."

Ororo rolled her eyes, not because she minded, but because there went Doug goofing around again. How was he not annoyed? How was either of them? She looked at Laurie and thought about kicking her, which would be a lot more satisfying than kicking Scott had been.

Her jaw dropped when not only did Doug keep singing, but Scott joined him!

"C'mon," Doug urged, pausing after the chorus, "don't you know 'Walk the Line'?"

Laurie sighed. "That's from, like, 1942," she said.

"1956," Scott muttered.

"1956," Doug echoed clearly.

Scott said something too quiet for Ororo to hear.

"Okay, we'll sing something modern," Doug ceded. "'The End of the World'?"

This time Ororo vetoed, "No! None of that whiny women off the radio shit." She said it in Arabic, but her tone was pretty clear.

"'Walk Like a Man'," Scott suggested.

"I don't know 'Walk Like a Man'," Laurie objected. Realizing she had just all but cooperated, she quickly added, "How about you sing 'Wild Weekend'?"

Doug laughed. "It's instrumental," he explained to Ororo, "no lyrics."

"What about that song, uh, 'Rain please tell me now does that seem fair'," Ororo suggested, reciting the lyric.

"I find it a curious recommendation," Doug replied, "relative to your objections of 'whiny women'."

But Ororo had suggested the song, so Doug and Scott set off. After a verse, Ororo gave in and sang a line here and there. She didn't know it all the way through. Doug continued nudging Laurie until, by the end of the song, all four of them were singing.

To her surprise, Ororo felt her frustration melting off in a way it hadn't just from walking in the fresh air. That helped, but the song cheered her immensely. She wanted to do another as soon as it was done.

"You know," Laurie remarked, seeming a little less frustrated herself, "I think Scott's voice is higher than mine."

"Is it?" Ororo wondered.

There was an edge in Laurie's voice as she replied, "Pretty sure."

Ororo elbowed Scott. "Do the oooohs in 'Walk Like a Man'," she told him.

"No."

"This was your idea," she pointed out.

"I bet I could make you," Laurie said. "With my power—I could make you."

Scott agreed, "Okay, look, I'll do it but then Ororo sings 'Big Girls Don't Cry'."

"Okay," Ororo said. She wouldn't sing it. She did not even know the song, but she wanted to hear Scott sing 'Walk Like a Man'. Then she would find some way to weasel out of 'Big Girls Don't Cry'.

"Hey." He nudged her shoulder and asked softly, "Feeling better?"

Ororo nodded. To her surprise, she felt a lot better.

"Stop trying to get out of it," Laurie said.

"Yeah, Scott, I want to hear you go oooh," Doug said, intending to make fun of Ororo's phrasing. Three of them burst out laughing, though Doug stifled it when he saw how red in the face Scott had gone. "That—that was inadvertently suggestive," Doug admitted.

They had been walking for a while now, no one really paying any attention to their surroundings beyond being sure to stick to the path, but they were out of sight of the road when they reached the clearing. It was the first time in a week they hadn't had an adult around and everyone from the best behaved (Doug) to the least accustomed to authority (Ororo) felt it. Now they had only trees and grass watching them.

"So," Laurie asked, "when do we get to see your gift?"

Scott shook his head.

"C'mon, if you're not gonna sing 'Walk Like a Man' the least you could do is show us. You've seen ours. Tit for tat."

"Oh, I bet he'd give tat for your—"

"Ororo," Scott murmured.

She gave him a surly look, but stopped talking.

"I'll admit to a polite curiosity," Doug offered, "and there is a degree of reciprocity…"

"It's not really—not for in front of people," Scott explained.

"You've seen ours," Laurie pointed out.

"I haven't… wouldn't… I just can't."

"Is it lame?" Ororo asked. "I bet that's it. I bet it's lame."

Scott shrugged.

"Do you have a lame power?" Laurie asked. "'Cause I heard you and your brother have the same—is Alex's lame, too?"

"Stop it."

"Make us," Ororo reasoned. "Show us your power and we'll shut up. Besides, I'm sure it's swell."

"Did—did you just say 'swell'?" Laurie asked. "No one says swell anymore."

With a heavy sigh, Doug weighed in, "Scott, do it or they'll resort to fisticuffs."

"I can't say 'swell' but he can say 'fisticuffs'?" Ororo asked. "I don't even know what fisticuffs are—dammit, Scott, you're ruining the whole day!"

Scott stared at the ground.

Laurie nudged him. "We just want to see your gift because it sounded so totally groovy," she appealed, and Scott felt a strange sense of relaxation. Suddenly, showing off his gift seemed like a great idea. So what if this wasn't the bomb shelter? Hadn't the Professor suggested, a day or two after his arrival, that Scott use his powers outside?

He adjusted his visor to the lowest possible exposure. This was actually something of a challenge: Scott couldn't, in most situations, take the time to carefully adjust and test, so much of his training was familiarizing himself with the thing that controlled his ability.

He aimed for a knothole and—bam.

No more knothole.

"Can you hit a moving target?" Laurie asked.

"Well, the Professor—"

"Here, try this." She lobbed a pinecone at him.

Scott stepped aside.

"Don't be so boring."

Laurie picked up another pinecone. The wind swept dirt into her eyes, and she blinked before throwing it.

A gust of wind volleyed the pinecone back to Laurie, smacking it into her chest. Ororo's clothes flapped. Her hair swirled. The weather drew to her and she embraced it.

"You were saying?" Ororo asked Laurie.

"Right," Laurie said. "Can't you even defend yourself, or do you need a kid to do it?" she asked Scott. She was goading him and he didn't understand why. Neither did Ororo, but she didn't care: Laurie was a jerk, end of story.

"Ororo," Scott murmured, "this is dangerous."

He looked to Doug for help, but Doug had gone uncharacteristically quiet.

Laurie retorted with another insult.

Clouds began to gather overhead. Ororo knew that the lightning would be drawn to the trees and a fire would be a real problem, but she wouldn't start a fire. She would be careful, would draw only a thread of lightning to her, slowly—slowly in lightning time, anyway. She would control it and things would be fine.

Only it wasn't a thread of lightning that came down from the sky.

They noticed the crash first and the smashed trees, too shocked to make sense of what they saw. There, before them, stood a giant metal man. Joints showed at his knees and elbows, twists of metal the size of a small child. His block of a head swung toward them, thin slits of eye casting light in the dark of his shadow.

Even Ororo, who found this no more foreign than the airplane that brought her to this country, felt her heart hammer.

"Is this… normal?" she whispered, too scared to build up a proper voice.

The others shook their heads, staring. The metal man stared back. Then he raised his hand, his palm facing them.

"Move," Scott rasped.

Something in the metal man whirred and clinked.

"Move!"

With a gutting _thuck_, something spat from the thing's palm as the four of them scattered. Ororo darted for the trees and Scott pulled Doug away. Laurie was slower to react. She started for cover—the metal man aimed—its attack hit her leg and tangled, knocking her to the ground.

A net. That's what it fired, a net to catch prey in.

One thought cut through a haze of fear with absolute clarity, one idea so familiar it put this situation into context, a word Ororo learned early to fear: hunter.


End file.
